Two potential creation scenarios

[agnosticatheist]

Let's assume for the sake of this debate that the following premises are true:

A: The Christian God exists

B: The Christian God created the universe

Now, let's consider two possible creation scenarios.

Scenario 1: God created each species in a separate creation event.

Scenario 1 questions for debate:

1. Why would God create each species in separate creation events and yet make it appear that each species emerged from earlier lifeforms? Wouldn't that make God dishonest?

2. The Bible says that God is trustworthy; can he still be trusted if he made it look like large-scale evolution has taken place when in fact it hasn't?

3. Why would God make it look like large-scale evolution has taken place when in fact it hasn't, knowing full well that this will cause many to doubt God's existence?

Scenario 2: God created the conditions in which carbon-based lifeforms could emerge and evolve on Earth, and eventually lead to the emergence of Homo Sapiens, which God would give a soul to (and perhaps make some other minor changes to), which would result in the creation of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, or Modern Humans.

Scenario B Question for debate:

1. Why would God go to all that trouble when he could simply create each species in separate creation events?

Here's a broader set of questions that apply to both scenarios:

Why would God create lifeforms other than humans? Clearly humans are important because they "house" the human soul. But what about Wolves? Crocodiles? Crows? Gorillas?

What is the role of non-human lifeforms in God's "plan"?

Do they have souls too? Consciousness/awareness is a state that people claim is possible due to the soul.

Well, the more we observe and study the non-human natural world, the more it seems that consciousness/awareness exists on a spectrum, from human-level awareness (or perhaps higher...), down to complete non-consciousness/non-awareness (e.g. bacteria). There isn't some absolute line where life is divided between conscious and non-conscious, except for maybe at the "lower lifeform levels", but definitely not at the "higher lifeform levels". Dogs are conscious, they just aren't conscious to the same degree that humans are.

So, why create lifeforms besides humans and have consciousness exist on a spectrum?

Why would God do this knowing full well that it would cause people to question his existence?

It just seems to be such an interesting coincidence that God created lifeform consciousness on a spectrum.

[SailingCyclops]

[Replying to post 9 by SailingCyclops]
Yup, when your starting assumptions are absurd on the face of it how can one expect to reach a logical conclusion?

Only by using magic.

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 1 by agnosticatheist]

You guys have so much to learn, and I have so little time to teach.

If you're genuinely interested in such issues, why not avail yourself of one of the outstanding sites that deal with them (e.g., CMI, AIG, ICR)? I know CMI has an outstanding search engine, and thousands of referenced articles -- just type in "creation scenarios", or email them, or comment on a related article --

Nevertheless:

An orange elephant.

Did a corresponding image come to your mind?

How about "Kate Upton in a bikini?"

Any luck?

Now, without going into the physiology, and the implications, of how an image that one moment did not exist in the universe, suddenly and instantaneously came into existence:

I submit that is a "type" of what occurred when an Eternal God created our 4D space-time continuum, of out His limitless "imagination". It's just that God is so infinitely, hyper-dimensionally "real", that his "imaginings" manifest as physical realities (which are, as the Bible implies, "vaporous" compared to the spiritual one).

This is, of course, beyond any possibility of our epistemological understanding. It is not, praise God, beyond the parameters of our metaphorical grasp; or of our belief.

Another important consideration:

God created kinds. Not "species" in the sense of our modern taxonomy.

These created "kinds" contained the genetic diversity and variation from which sprang all of the adaptations we now see.

A useful illustration is the domestic dog.

Every "breed" now in existence (and all mongrels) came from an original wolf-like ancestor, and were carefully, artificially selected for various traits, to the exclusion of others (making frequent use of genetic mutations that would be harmful, if not disastrous, in the wild -- e.g., "pushed in" muzzles), and at the cost of a loss of genetic information.

Bottom line: you can get Chihuahua from a wolf. But you can't get a wolf from a Chihuahua.

Now -- I drop by this board from time to time, mainly to take a break from a much less-moderated board, when the intellectual climate there becomes too annoyingly low-thermal.

This board is much more time-consuming; and both are addictive time-eaters -- so unless there is a truly compelling response here, I probably won't engage it...

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to Volbrigade]

Nevertheless:

An orange elephant.

Did a corresponding image come to your mind?

How about "Kate Upton in a bikini?"

You didn't create anything and all of these things already exist. Imagining something doesn't equal creating something.

[H.sapiens]

You guys have so much to learn, and I have so little time to teach.

Good thing you're short on time, you wouldn't want to sink any further than you already have.

If you're genuinely interested in such issues, why not avail yourself of one of the outstanding sites that deal with them (e.g., CMI, AIG, ICR)? I know CMI has an outstanding search engine, and thousands of referenced articles -- just type in "creation scenarios", or email them, or comment on a related article --

The sites you mention just mirror the same basic errors that you make, or should I say you make the same basic errors
they do, trying to force-fit reality by way of straw-men and arguments from ignorance into the box of preconceived notions.

Nevertheless:

An orange elephant.

Did a corresponding image come to your mind?

No

How about "Kate Upton in a bikini?"

Who's Kate Upton?

Any luck?

Nope.

Now, without going into the physiology, and the implications, of how an image that one moment did not exist in the universe, suddenly and instantaneously came into existence:

Even if I had visualized something, that something is not "in existence" it "exists" only in imagination.

I submit that is a "type" of what occurred when an Eternal God created our 4D space-time continuum, of out His limitless "imagination". It's just that God is so infinitely, hyper-dimensionally "real", that his "imaginings" manifest as physical realities (which are, as the Bible implies, "vaporous" compared to the spiritual one).

I submit that your spewing rather meaningless phrases and concepts, I know nerdy physicists whose universe has far more than four dimensions. Your "god" must be very weak indeed ... or perhaps nonexistent.

This is, of course, beyond any possibility of our epistemological understanding. It is not, praise God, beyond the parameters of our metaphorical grasp; or of our belief.

There's that word again, your favorite word, "epistemological." Is that the logest word you know to date? There are lots of longer ones you can find on-line.

Another important consideration:

God created kinds. Not "species" in the sense of our modern taxonomy.

These created "kinds" contained the genetic diversity and variation from which sprang all of the adaptations we now see.

You're chasing your tail here, epistemologically speaking. Kind translates to the Hebrew "min" which translates to the English "species" so that's a dead end for your argument.

A useful illustration is the domestic dog.

Every "breed" now in existence (and all mongrels) came from an original wolf-like ancestor, and were carefully, artificially selected for various traits, to the exclusion of others (making frequent use of genetic mutations that would be harmful, if not disastrous, in the wild -- e.g., "pushed in" muzzles), and at the cost of a loss of genetic information.

Bottom line: you can get Chihuahua from a wolf. But you can't get a wolf from a Chihuahua.

This is useful for what?

If it is true, it demonstrates that Chihuahuas are an incipient species, not yet fully separated. It suggests that you can't go backward through either strong selection nor thorough a small genetic bottleneck. It seems to me that you are making the natural selection case. Was that your intent? Chihuahuas have not "lost" genetic material, they can still be crossbred with all other dogs and wolves, they have the same chromosomes, the same amount of genetic material, only it codes for different proteins. Has the Chihuahua lost the ability to code for certain specific variants of certain specific proteins? Sure, but then the Chihuahua has other specific variants of certain specific proteins that the wolf does not. What your saying is that when I'm playing five card draw and I discard three cards and the dealer give me three new cards that I have less than five cards, and that's obviously not true.

[Gran]

[Replying to post 12 by Volbrigade]

You're pretty pretentious for someone who simply assumes that God "is" - the Christian God, no less - and that his method of craftsmanship was explicitly revealed to you.

If you don't have a mechanism backed by empirical evidence, than you don't have a case for positive belief.

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 14 by H.sapiens]

What your saying is that when I'm playing five card draw and I discard three cards and the dealer give me three new cards that I have less than five cards, and that's obviously not true.

There is a reshuffling of the genetic "deck of cards" to get from a wolf to a Chihuahua, to be sure.

It is an enormously complex process, involving not only the DNA molecule -- a code written in three dimensions, with information embedded in ways we have yet to comprehend -- but all of the cellular processes involved in the sustenance of life; and the nano- machinery and technology necessary for those to take place.

All of it a product of exquisite, detailed design, from the Intelligence of the Creator who "spoke" (careful here; simple words can convey impenetrably complex mysteries, if you're willing to jettison your impoverished materialist worldview) the Cosmos into existence, in the exercise of His will and purpose, and to His glory.

Intelligence Will Design Information (a little slogan that sprang from my God-given intelligence; as yet uncopyrighted -- feel free to use ).

What's important to understand, in the wolf-chihuahua example, is that God designed original kinds (canine, bovine, equine, etc.) with the diversity in their genomes to allow adaptation to a wide range of environments and conditions.

This adaptation typically involves the selecting OUT of undesirable traits. A climate change involving the lowering of temperature would favor animals with longer coats, from a genetically diverse population; and those with shorter ones would have difficulty adapting, and be sexually selected against. The eventual conclusion of that process would be a population in which the gene for short coats has been selected out of the genome (big trouble if it warms up again -- the information for shorter coats would have to come from mixing with an outside population).

A simple example, sure.

Mutation CAN play a role, but it is overwhelmingly either (apparently) neutral, or harmful -- clear cut cases of advantageous mutations are hard to find; and involve the switching OFF of genes through copying errors; not the introduction of new information of the kind to make a frog begin to acquire wings ( ).

A chihuahua has been artificially selected for certain traits; a process which does involve the perpetration of mutations, by design (of the breeder(s) ).

It is suited to its environment of being carried under the arm of doting owners, or satisfied to nestle on a sofa in an apartment; but would be in big trouble if that environment changed substantially. The genetic information needed to adapt to changes has been selected out: there is no information in its genome to "evolve" back into a wolf (or more "wolf-like" organism), should it be forced to live in the wild.

In short: the direction of evolution is always "downhill", from genetic variation and diversity, to specification (speciation), and always involves the loss of information.

It is impossible to evolve "uphill" from a microbe to a man, unless a Supreme Intelligence guides every change involved in the process. Randomness cannot generate information, by definition.

Some people think that's exactly what happened: God guided the evolutionary process.

But there is no more evidence for that, than for a living cell to become organized by random processes; or for a universe to erupt into existence without being caused.

The Biblical narrative is the only one that makes sense, holds water, and for which there is empirical evidence.

Because it is true.

[bluethread]

That said, the premise of this thread is Christian mysticism, as judged by the conclusions of scientific empiricism.

How is that?

Sorry, the brevity of your post caused me to overlook it. When it comes to creation, Christianity explains it using revelation. That is a form of mysticism. Evolution explains it using what is currently observed, using the scientific method. That is scientific empiricism. Revelation can not be verified based entirely on what is currently observed, using the scientific method. Mysticism and scientific empiricism are each useful for different purposes.

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 14 by H.sapiens]

What your saying is that when I'm playing five card draw and I discard three cards and the dealer give me three new cards that I have less than five cards, and that's obviously not true.

There is a reshuffling of the genetic "deck of cards" to get from a wolf to a Chihuahua, to be sure.

So you don't lose cards (or genes) you replace some cards (or genes) with alternate ones.

It is an enormously complex process, involving not only the DNA molecule -- a code written in three dimensions, with information embedded in ways we have yet to comprehend -- but all of the cellular processes involved in the sustenance of life; and the nano- machinery and technology necessary for those to take place.

No. Actually it is rather simple.

All of it a product of exquisite, detailed design, from the Intelligence of the Creator who "spoke" (careful here; simple words can convey impenetrably complex mysteries, if you're willing to jettison your impoverished materialist worldview) the Cosmos into existence, in the exercise of His will and purpose, and to His glory.

Or of your willing to whip up straw-men in the service of arguments from ignorance.

Intelligence Will Design Information (a little slogan that sprang from my God-given intelligence; as yet uncopyrighted -- feel free to use ).

A good slogan requires at least two things: at least a sliver of truth and an elegent turn of phrase ... that has neither, so have no fear, I will pass on it.

What's important to understand, in the wolf-chihuahua example, is that God designed original kinds (canine, bovine, equine, etc.) with the diversity in their genomes to allow adaptation to a wide range of environments and conditions.

I fail to understand the sense in which you are using the word "kind." We already determined that if you go back through the Hebrew it is synonymous with "species," yet the sense you are using it in here is nonsense (now there's a slogan that you could use, possessing as it does the necessary requirements).

This adaptation typically involves the selecting OUT of undesirable traits.

No, evolution means the replacement of less fit traits with more fit traits. This may involve the the complete replacement of the trait (selecting out in your terms) or the creation of a heterozygous condition where the population has increased it's options and gained access to a new phenotype without loosing the old phenotype.

A climate change involving the lowering of temperature would favor animals with longer coats, from a genetically diverse population; and those with shorter ones would have difficulty adapting, and be sexually selected against. The eventual conclusion of that process would be a population in which the gene for short coats has been selected out of the genome (big trouble if it warms up again -- the information for shorter coats would have to come from mixing with an outside population).

A simple example, sure.

Worse than that, an overly simplistic explanation of an overly simplified example. In canids there is far more to themoregulatory homeostasis that simple coat length, especially since they cool through evaporation from their respiratory tract and oral cavity and posses a complex pelage structure with different sorts of hairs and the ability to adjust the insulative capacity on the fly.

Mutation CAN play a role, but it is overwhelmingly either (apparently) neutral, or harmful -- clear cut cases of advantageous mutations are hard to find; and involve the switching OFF of genes through copying errors; not the introduction of new information of the kind to make a frog begin to acquire wings ( ).

There you go invoking a straw-man to whistle up an argument from ignorance wound about a false dichotomy. Clear cases of advantageous mutations are all around you, neural mutations are invisible and harmful mutations are hard to find since most of them have been removed from the population. We tend to identify harmful mutations more easily because they result in often monstrous inborn errors of metabolism that are rather hard to miss (when they don't result in a spontaneous abortion or an undetectable and undetected pregnancy that terminated due to a failure too implant).

A chihuahua has been artificially selected for certain traits; a process which does involve the perpetration of mutations, by design (of the breeder(s) ).

It is suited to its environment of being carried under the arm of doting owners, or satisfied to nestle on a sofa in an apartment; but would be in big trouble if that environment changed substantially. The genetic information needed to adapt to changes has been selected out: there is no information in its genome to "evolve" back into a wolf (or more "wolf-like" organism), should it be forced to live in the wild.

I really don't see what the importance of evolving back to an earlier state might be. Evolution is, by and large, a one way process. Heterozygousity is a way of hedging your evolutionary bet. A release of chihuahuas back into the wild is unlikely to result their turning back into timber wolves. It will either result in the extinction of the population or it's evolution into something else, perhaps a canid that fills a rat-like niche rather than the classic canind niche of an endurance pursuit hunter.

In short: the direction of evolution is always "downhill", from genetic variation and diversity, to specification (speciation), and always involves the loss of information.

You simply do not know what you are talking about. Once again you have a preconceived notion that you trying to serve and you are sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling rather than paying attention. There is not up or down hill in evolutionary terms, there is just change. Evolution is the replacement of information with different information and often involves to duplication of existing information and then the replacement of either the original or duplicate. This results in an increase in information without loss. Information is, in some cases, simply replaced, if you want too see that as "loss" fine, but that does violence to reality. Again, a card example. When playing Bridge the bidding defines the environment, a two of clubs can beat the ace of spades card if clubs is the trump suit. It is the interaction of the thirteen cards in the hand with the environment (the bid) medicated by the skill of the player, that defines the success of the hand. In all cases the information is thirteen cards, no more, no less.

It is impossible to evolve "uphill" from a microbe to a man, unless a Supreme Intelligence guides every change involved in the process. Randomness cannot generate information, by definition.

Again, there is neither uphill nor downhill, there is just change and the "success" of the change is medicated by the environment of the moment. There is not need for an intelligence, supreme or inferior and evolution does, obviously, generate novel structures and solutions.

Some people think that's exactly what happened: God guided the evolutionary process.

But there is no more evidence for that, than for a living cell to become organized by random processes; or for a universe to erupt into existence without being caused.

The Biblical narrative is the only one that makes sense, holds water, and for which there is empirical evidence.

Because it is true.

You are forced to close with yet another multipronged appeal to ignorance, that is quite fitting. Please, share with us your claimed empirical evidence.

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 18 by H.sapiens]

Again, there is neither uphill nor downhill, there is just change and the "success" of the change is medicated by the environment of the moment. There is not need for an intelligence, supreme or inferior and evolution does, obviously, generate novel structures and solutions.

It's nice that it does that. That is, that it decided to do that. Nice of God to ordain that it do that.

Don't you agree?

You really don't consider the mythical climb form microbe to man, an "uphill" process?

In that case, it's just sort of sideways, I guess.

I asked, earlier, for scientific evidence that a human being is of any more value than a dog, pig, or slug.

In your worldview, there is none. None is needed. We have no more value than the solid waste products we eliminate (argubly, less -- they, at least, can be pressed into utilitarian use as fuel).

For there is no such thing as value, or any standards, in any meaningful, ultimate, absolute sense (how could there be? We're just matter interacting with other matter).

God help us from such a predicament. From such an epistemology. From such a worldview, and philosophy.

Praise God --

He has.

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 18 by H.sapiens]

Again, there is neither uphill nor downhill, there is just change and the "success" of the change is medicated by the environment of the moment. There is not need for an intelligence, supreme or inferior and evolution does, obviously, generate novel structures and solutions.

It's nice that it does that. That is, that it decided to do that. Nice of God to ordain that it do that.

Don't you agree?

You really don't consider the mythical climb form microbe to man, an "uphill" process?

In that case, it's just sort of sideways, I guess.

I asked, earlier, for scientific evidence that a human being is of any more value than a dog, pig, or slug.

In your worldview, there is none. None is needed. We have no more value than the solid waste products we eliminate (argubly, less -- they, at least, can be pressed into utilitarian use as fuel).

For there is no such thing as value, or any standards, in any meaningful, ultimate, absolute sense (how could there be? We're just matter interacting with other matter).

You seem to have a very ugly outlook on life. Please keep it to yourself. I find meaning in life, therefore, I conclude that you must not and in order to fill this void you have, you have chosen a religion to follow that provides you with meaning.

I'm glad that works for you, but please try to understand that not everyone must also suffer from the depression and horrible outlook on life that you suffer from.

God help us from such a predicament. From such an epistemology. From such a worldview, and philosophy.

Praise God --

He has.

I truly hope that you will find help someday.
PM me if you are interested in ways to deal with depression.
Be well.